


And They Called It Puppy Love

by lady_ragnell



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Merlin's dogs start getting along long before they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And They Called It Puppy Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/13287.html?thread=11252711#t11252711) prompt on kinkme_merlin. Titled "Canine Cupids" at the original posting.

Arthur is out for a stroll half an hour earlier than usual, Cafall trotting along beside him at perfect heel like always, when they are attacked by a small dustmop. “What the--” Arthur says, because Cafall is suddenly tugging on the leash and his work trousers are covered in dog hair of at least three different shades.

“Sorry, sorry!” someone calls, and runs up from behind to catch the dustmop in his arms. The dustmop proves to be a small dog that is possibly part every kind of terrier in existence, and Arthur has a horrible premonition that a quick bout with the lint roller is not going to free his favorite trousers of the fur. The dustmop’s owner proves to be a man about Arthur’s height, built like a scarecrow and grinning like an idiot. “Kilgharrah sometimes gets it in his head to introduce himself and, well, you know how it goes. One second he’s on the leash good as you please and the next he’s halfway across the park. Sorry, mate.”

“No, I don’t know how it goes. Cafall is actually trained.” Arthur is well-bred enough to leave the _Unlike some other dogs I could mention_ unspoken.

The stranger’s grin drops, to be replaced by arched, disbelieving eyebrows. “Really? I wouldn’t know it to look at him.”

Arthur opens his mouth to say he has no idea what the strange man is talking about before proceeding on his way, but he realizes Cafall is tugging at the leash. And jumping. And really making an unnecessary production out of sniffing the mutt in the stranger’s arms and looking ecstatic. “Normally he is much better-behaved. Is yours in heat or something?”

“Kilgharrah is a male. And neutered. What, yours isn’t?” The stranger smiles indulgently at the dustmop, who is panting and trying to wriggle out of his arms. “I think they just like each other. It’s like when you meet someone and like the look of them immediately. Dogs’ primary sense is their sense of smell, so it makes sense ...” He trails off and seems to realize that Arthur is staring at him with barely-concealed contempt. “I’m Merlin.”

“I’m leaving,” says Arthur, and tugs on the leash. “Cafall, _come_.”

*

That should be the end of it. In fact, if Arthur weren’t softhearted, it would be the end of it. But Cafall ... Cafall pines. Arthur knows he shouldn’t notice things like that about his dog, but it’s just them in his big house and normally their routine is unassailable. But the morning after they took their walk early and met the mad terrier and his equally mad owner (which is what comes of having to schedule early meetings. He makes a note to tell his father not to do that anymore), Cafall brings his leash to Arthur half an hour earlier than normal. Waking Arthur up, no less, when Arthur had broken him of that within two weeks of bringing him home.

Then, when Arthur refuses to walk him early because he hasn’t had coffee and needs to get dressed and really wants half an hour of sleep anyway, Cafall sulks. He won’t let Arthur pet him for the rest of the day, he doesn’t eat much of his own food but begs for Arthur’s, and tugs him around on their walks like he’s looking for something. And then he does it again the next day. Arthur decides to invest in a pet psychology book.

Morgana comes over for dinner the next night, and even she notices something’s off about his normally beautifully-behaved dog. And she’s a _cat person_.

Arthur lasts three more days before he caves, and Cafall keeps bringing his leash half an hour early in the mornings and looking tortured when Arthur makes a point of dawdling about his morning tasks. Finally, he sets his alarm early, and takes Cafall to the park, Cafall almost frolicking as they walk. (As if the sulking weren’t disturbing enough. Mastiffs are not meant to frolic.)

“Oh, thank God,” says an almost-familiar voice not five minutes after Arthur enters the park, and there’s the dust mop, actually on a leash, with Merlin leading him. “Kilgharrah has been getting quite depressed. He really did take to ... what’s your dog’s name, then?”

“Cafall,” says Arthur, disconcerted. Cafall is tugging on the leash again, half-choking himself, in fact, and the dustmop seems to be doing the same. He takes an automatic step, which is close enough for the dogs to leap at each other and start sniffing and licking and chasing each other about. Arthur has a sudden memory of American children’s cartoons that Morgana’s mother had plopped them in front of when they were children and the balls of dust and fur that came up during fights.

“Hold on, your brute could crush him! They may like each other, but no reason for that!”

Arthur pulls Cafall back and intends to inform Merlin that he is perfectly well-behaved and won’t be crushing anyone, thank you very much, but he discovers at the same moment as the other man that the dogs have managed to twist their leashes together. And are still attempting to frolic. “Let’s just let them off the leashes. Cafall won’t leave the park without me, and your dustmop--”

“Kilgharrah.”

“Kill-whatsis, then, seems attached enough to him that he won’t go running off. That way they can play and we needn’t be right alongside them.”

Merlin nods his agreement and they free the dogs and then the leashes. The dogs lunge off to investigate a particular bush, and then start to chase the squirrel that comes flying out of it. Cafall could probably catch it easily, but he slows down so he doesn’t leave the dustmop behind and they end up just running about instead. “I’m not going to have the heart to separate them, after this,” says Merlin a few minutes later.

Arthur starts to attention from his position leaning against a tree and pointedly not making eye contact or conversation. “They certainly seem to have taken to each other.”

Merlin sighs. “Look, I get that you think I’m the scum of the earth or something, but our dogs seem to like each other, so you could at least attempt to be civil. Like, maybe you could introduce yourself so I can stop calling you a prat in my head.”

“Arthur. I’m Arthur.”

“Ah. That explains Cafall then.”

Arthur wants to ask about Merlin’s apparent familiarity with Arthurian legend (well, no, with his name that’s really not a surprise, although not many people know the name of King Arthur’s dog. He certainly hadn’t, that was all Morgana’s fault) or where on earth Kilgharrah’s name came from, but that would be showing an interest. Instead, he just nods.

*

After that, Arthur and Merlin are at the park at the same time every morning to let their dogs off the leash, and the dogs still adore each other. Kilgharrah has a surprisingly loud growl, so he scares out whatever imaginary prey they intend to stalk that morning, and then Cafall chases it and, often as not, brings it back to his new friend, at which point Merlin usually lets out a despairing noise and tells them to let the poor struggling thing go. Arthur starts bringing a ball, and the dogs play an odd sort of catch with it, taking turns holding it in their mouths and shot-putting it as far as they can (which isn’t far).

Meanwhile, Arthur and Merlin sit on adjacent park benches and speak as little as possible. Arthur brings his morning paper and a coffee. Merlin brings what seems like a different book every day, on a wide variety of subjects, and usually a muffin with nothing to wash it down, which Arthur thinks is ridiculous. Muffins are dry. He doesn’t know how Merlin can stand to eat them without even a water bottle.

He learns, almost against his will, that Merlin inherited Kilgharrah from his father when his father went to find himself in the Welsh mountains and that Merlin will, in a few weeks, be starting his first year as a teacher at the local secondary school, mostly A-level Maths. In turn, Arthur grudgingly divulges that he’s an architect with his father’s real estate empire and that Cafall was his housewarming present to himself.

“Do you know Gwen Smith?” Merlin asks one morning. “It’s only that she mentioned knowing a Morgana, and so did you, and it’s not exactly a common name, is it?”

“Yes, I know Gwen. I don’t believe there’s a person in town she doesn’t know. She teaches at the primary school.” He also used to date her, but that is complicated and he doesn’t particularly want to explain it to Merlin.

Merlin sighs after a long, silent moment. “That was my attempt at starting an actual conversation, Arthur. I don’t know why you think I’m beneath you, but these mornings are starting to get pretty awkward, you know.”

Arthur has a split-second version of Merlin _beneath him_ and chokes on his coffee.

*

The next morning, Arthur brings Merlin coffee. “Muffins cannot possibly be good without something to wash them down.”

“I think I love you,” remarks Merlin, and sits down on the bench next to Arthur, leaving the bookmark in a book of Oscar Wilde’s plays. “My coffeemaker is broken and I never seem to get to the coffee shop before our da--play-date.”

“But you have time to get muffins?”

“I make the muffins. I’ll bring you one tomorrow.” And he does. It’s actually quite delicious, even though Arthur generally prefers scones.

Merlin starts varying his baked-goods repertoire after that, and even brings homemade bones for the dog. For a while, Arthur keeps reading his paper, but then one morning Merlin shows up with Douglas Adams and he has to comment, and somehow, while Merlin starts his new job and Arthur gets involved in a new development project with his father, their dogs’ frolicking becomes secondary to Arthur’s interest as he and Merlin talk about books and films and the latest season of Doctor Who. By late September, Merlin’s goaded him into reading along with lots of the books he reads, and Arthur is quite sure he hasn’t read this much since college.

“I’m going out of town for a few days,” Merlin says one day in October. “If you don’t want to, it’s completely fine, but would you take care of Kilgharrah for me? I’ll pay you ...”

“No, no, it’s fine. Cafall and I will be happy to have the company.” Merlin’s grin is blinding, and Arthur wonders with a blink when he started paying more attention to Merlin’s cheekbones than to his frankly ridiculous ears.

Somehow when he gets back, Merlin talks him into letting him pay for them to go out to dinner, since Arthur won’t take payment for taking care of Kilgharrah, especially because the dogs’ roughhousing broke a picture frame. After that, when the whole town sees them at the diner because it’s the only place anyone goes to eat, Merlin is everywhere, not just at the park. Gwen sings Merlin’s praises when he runs into her at the grocery, and Morgana just smirks in that insufferable way she has when she sees them arguing over who gets to pay for the morning’s coffee. Arthur gets used to waking up early and then having an extra half hour in his morning just because Merlin can’t walk Kilgharrah any later if he wants to get to work on time, and their dogs won’t let them have a lie-in at the weekend (they’ve tried).

That’s why it’s a shock when Merlin stays the night (well, it’s a shock Merlin stays the night, full stop, but that isn’t the point, and Arthur doesn’t want to be accused of being insecure, so he keeps it to himself anyway) and Arthur wakes up with the sun streaming in his window and Merlin’s arms wrapped around him instead of to a cold nose shoved in his face. Merlin is laughing, and when Arthur manages to unstick his face from the pillow, he sees Cafall and Kilgharrah sitting, tails wagging almost in unison, at the door to his bedroom.

“Well,” says Merlin, before dropping a kiss on Arthur’s shoulder, “at least we know the kids approve.”


End file.
